(PRESS RELEASE) — PokerStars.com today announced details for this season’s EPT Awards. The Awards, which recognise and reward top performances during the world’s richest poker tour, have proved hugely popular with poker fans across Europe and beyond, and created a real buzz during Season 6 as players vied to top the rankings and snag the titles. Season 7’s EPT Awards will feature a revised structure that awards different points to different tournaments according to their field size. A new award is also being introduced to reward the best Heads-Up player.

The full list of awards is as follows:

• EPT Player of the Year • EPT Omaha Player of the Year • EPT Mixed Games Player of the Year • EPT Heads-Up Player of the Year (NEW) • EPT Players’ Choice of the Year • EPT Best Achievement of the Year • EPT Best Online Qualifier • EPT Best Country

EPT players will be able to cast votes on their fellow players for the Players’ Choice and Best Achievement Awards.

Each individual award winner will win a seat for the opening event of EPT Season 8 and will also receive a PokerStars trophy (golden for Player of the Year and silver for all other award winners).

The nation that triumphs in the EPT Best Country award will win a €10,000 freeroll tournament to be played live at the EPT stop closest to the winning country. The Best Country will be determined by the highest percentage of cashes, i.e. the number of players that cash out of the total of EPT players from that country. The winner of last season’s Best Country, the Czech Republic, will host its live €10,000 freeroll at EPT Prague in December. For further information please visit http://www.europeanpokertour.com/awards/

Russian pro Max Lykov, current EPT Player of the Year and winner of last season’s inaugural EPT event in Kyiv, is looking forward to breaking records in Season 7. He said he hopes to win a second, or even a third title. However, as he puts it, “It’s going to be a little harder this year because I’m better-known now and people understand how I play a bit more. But I plan to try, and I’m going to play all the EPTs. Changing the rules to award more points depending on field size is definitely a good idea.”

For his POY Award, Lykov won a seat into EPT Tallinn and said he is having a great time. “I’ve never been here before and it’s a beautiful city – and at the moment I have chips!”

EPT Season 7 kicked off in the beautiful city of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia and is running August 11-16, 2010. Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater is due to receive her award for EPT Best Mixed Games Player of the Year at the party being held at EPT Tallinn on Friday night. There was an eight-way tie for the award during the regular EPT season so an online final was held, which Thater won.

Joining Thater in Tallinn are other winners of Season 6 Awards, including: Player of the Year, Russian pro Max Lykov; Danish pro Allan Baekke, recipient of the EPT Achievement of the Year Award for winning EPT Snowfest and running deep at EPT Sanremo; EPT Players’ Choice winner and Berlin champion Kevin MacPhee; and EPT Online Qualifier of the Year and Friend of PokerStars Pierre Neuville.

For a full EPT Season 7 schedule, please visit: www.ept.com

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